


means to an end

by zimtlein



Category: Insatiable (TV 2018)
Genre: Corpses, Gen, Mental Instability, Mild Gore, Murder, Post-Season/Series 02, Self-Worth Issues, implied eating disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 05:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21131096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimtlein/pseuds/zimtlein
Summary: She’s great at destroying, she realizes. But most of all, she’s great at destroying herself.





	means to an end

Patty applies her lip gloss. She looks prettier with dried blood on her cheeks, she thinks. Gives her a certain edge. She thought about getting take-out and decided against it. She smacks her lips, looks at herself through her pocket mirror. She has to hold it close, close enough to have a glimpse of that one tooth in the lower row that’s just a bit crooked. If she smiles, nobody can see it. So she smiles.

She isn’t hungry, not anymore. She hasn’t been hungry in a long time. She waited for the confession, the endless pit in her stomach filled as soon as Regina Sinclair finally (_finally_) opened her mouth to talk. The reasons don’t matter, Patty decided. No reason is worth more than the truth.

She smacks her lips again. Too much lip gloss, she removes it carefully with the tip of her little finger as she lifts her chin. Her eyeshadow has become cakey around the corners of her eyes. One of her fake lashes has come loose. She sighs and scratches her bloodied cheeks.

She looks over her shoulder. Regina is waiting for her. The last time, Patty remembers, panic made her heart pound and her eyes water. There’s no need to worry now, though. She has found her inner self, her balance, the voice in her head that won’t let her down.

She takes one last look in the mirror. It’s a pleasantly warm night, a starry sky above her. Regina killed her last victim with an axe (Pamela Kendall Heather who the hell cares, who the hell will even want to remember her name), so it’s only fitting that Regina died by the same means. Irony of fate, the usual. Patty wipes the black marks of her smudged eyeliner from her cheeks, puts on her best smile and stands up. Her dress is torn, one of her heels broke off. She staggers toward Regina, ignores the pulsating wounds on her arm.

The axe is still lying next to Regina, the blade colored a deep red. Patty squats and looks at Regina. She knows Bob will understand what she did for him. She knows her mother will be proud of her. She knows Nonnie will come around sooner or later, and if she doesn’t, then fuck her. Fuck people who wouldn’t go far enough to save someone they love.

She reaches for gold locks and lets them glide through her fingers. Regina’s hair is damaged from years and years of not being treated properly. (Conditioner, she hears Bob say. Eat healthily. Did you even eat? She did, she swears she did, but she’s hungry, she’s empty, everything inside her is empty.) Her makeup is too out there. (Don’t forget to use primer, she hears Bob say. Glittery eyeshadow with her outfit? He’s right, she realizes, she is made for natural looks, for unremarkable looks, empty beauty with nothing to go for, shallow nothingness that will never amount to anything.) Her eyes are widened and dull, blood having dried underneath her nose. (What is she doing, Regina asks before the first blow. The dead girls must have looked at her with fear, but Patty feels more powerful than ever. She strikes. The hunger is gone.)

Patty keeps smiling, no one has to know about her crooked tooth, and she grabs the axe. Her arms hurt. But she feels more alive than ever, and she raises the axe and lets it crash down. A crack. Soft flesh, hard bones. Patty huffs and does it again. Another crack, she’s never making the same mistake again. (She might be pretty (somewhere, somehow), but she’s not dumb.) Another crack, she starts sweating, strands of hair sticking to her face. She licks her lips, licks the lip gloss away. It was pink and glittery and tastes of strawberries. Her huffs become heavy breaths, become little sounds, become quiet screams.

It’s lonely. She needs no one but herself. It’s surreal, seeing Regina lying there like a puppet, the first limb detached from the body. Patty keeps smiling, nobody will see it. She does it for no one but herself. Bob is waiting for her, counting on her. There was no fear in his eyes, she knows. Bob would never fear her. Bob showed her a bright future, and she moves to the other arm. Stars are watching her. She wipes sweat from her forehead, hopes this unusual training won’t show too much. Pronounced arm muscles aren’t that attractive, she read in magazines. (She’s a lady, after all, a voice in the back of her head taunts her.)

The legs are last. Patty feels full. Satisfied, for the first time in her whole damn life. It takes more strength to crack the bones of legs. It takes more tries, and Patty’s arms are aching. But Regina isn’t moving, isn’t protesting. She’s quiet and obedient. She waits for Patty to do her job, the constant nagging and squeaking and crying finally gone.

Regina’s confession is waiting on her phone. Bob is waiting for her, too. He was her last hope, and now she is his. Regina isn’t bleeding anymore, she’s cold and her skin is grey underneath the moonlight. Somehow, Patty realizes far too late that it’s not blood streaming down her cheeks.

She stops. It’s lonely. The sounds won’t leave her mind, but it isn’t too bad. (Not as bad as watching Gordy’s body hit the ground, noticing the smile on her own lips.) She takes her pocket mirror and looks at herself. Streaks of dark red on her flawless skin. Her eye makeup is smudged and ugly. Her forehead is glistening with sweat. The loose lash hangs from the corner of her eye, and she rips it off with more force than necessary.

She doesn’t throw it to the ground. No need to take risks.

The fake eyelash lands in her purse. The dismembered body lands in her pink suitcase. She drags it to the car she stole from her mother (who left her again, who must have been sensing the ugliness hiding behind a pretty face), puts it in the trunk. Regina has nothing left to say. Her only words are banned onto a blurry video.

Patty looks at herself in the rearview mirror. She tries fixing her hair and fails. There’s no lip gloss left, only pale pink skin. There’s blood on her cheeks. It looks pretty, she thinks. It looks pretty, she convinces herself. She’s not hungry and she bites her nails. Her stomach isn’t hurting. She wasn’t crying, and she won’t.

Someone knocks on the window.

Patty flinches violently and whirls her head around. Magnolia is staring at her. Closing her eyes for a second, Patty releases a breath and wills herself to let her hand sink down to her lap. She opens the door.

“What the hell?” Magnolia hisses. “What is this about? Is that – is that blood?”

Magnolia isn’t afraid, because she must know that she is one of the only few friends Patty has left. So Patty smiles. She smiles until it hurts. “I did it, Magnolia. I’ve got her confession.”

“What?”

“Regina’s confession. I’ve got it on video. Look!” She opens her purse, rummages around. Realizes her hands are shaking violently. From the exhaustion. The weight of the axe is still palpable in the palm of her hands, and she unlocks the display and shoves it in Magnolia’s direction. “Bob is going to be released, and everything is going to be all right, and –”

“Where is she?” Magnolia asks softly. “Where is Regina right now?”

Patty’s smile fades. She can’t understand why Magnolia doesn’t seem happy. She can’t understand why Magnolia can’t understand.

“In the trunk,” she replies.

“Unconscious?”

Patty wants to shake her head. Instead she silently keeps looking at Magnolia.

“Fuck,” Magnolia mutters. Her shoulders start trembling.

“Don’t worry. Nobody’s gonna know. As soon as Bob is out of prison, he’ll stop the swamp from being drained, and nobody will find her. Or the others. Nobody will find anything.”

Magnolia stares at her. In her eyes, Patty can see what she refuses to admit to herself. She wants to smile, but she can’t, and the dried blood on her cheeks starts to itch.

“Hungry?” Magnolia whispers. She sounds so fucking terrified that Patty wants to throw up.

“Not really.”

“Great. Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we’ll get some take-out.” Magnolia keeps staring at her. “You want me to drive?”

“No.”

“Awesome. Then scoot over.”

Patty does. She feels full and satisfied. She keeps shivering. She’s great at destroying, she realizes. But most of all, she’s great at destroying herself.

She sees her reflection in the car window. She searches for her lip gloss in her purse and applies a new layer. She smacks her lips, admires the way they glister in the reflection. When she smiles, not even Patty herself can see who she really is.


End file.
